The Flying Or Maybe Falling Feeling
by DinosaursOnASpaceship
Summary: Fourteen year old Rose is stuck inside, all alone, to do disgusting math homework when an unexpected, but very welcome visitor stops by.


Rose glared at the pathetic piece of paper in front of her. Math homework was always unbearable, but usually there was someone around to help her (Saffy) or at least just let her copy (Kiran), but tonight there was no one. Absolutely no one. Her entire family was out, having lives (except Mummy who was painting in the shed) while she stayed in the banana house to do work. Worse yet, math work. Not even Kiran or Molly were around. Molly was volunteering at some zoo in London and Kiran, Rose's most trusted friend, had abandoned her for a weekend in the country.

"It will be so incredibly dull, but I have to do it," Kiran had explained to Rose earlier that Friday morning. "Everyone's going. All the cousins and aunts and uncles and second cousins four times removed. You know how these things are." Rose had said that she did not know how those things are because she had never experienced them before. "Well they are completely boring, thats how they are," Kiran had responded. But that didn't sound boring to Rose. A night in with math homework seemed much more monotonous.

It was a cold evening, mid February and the fourteen year old looked longingly out the window and onto the street outside. A small flurry of snow had begun to speckle the concrete. Absent mindedly Rose began to doodle snowflakes on the worksheet. Careful to make each one unique, she became so enthralled with her new project (and procrastination), that she did not pay much attention to the knock on the door. In a daze of art and concentration she called out: "It's open!" She heard the door open not even bothering to look up until the unknown visitor spoke.

"Hello Permanent Rose!"

The familiar figure leaned cooling against the wall, smirking at Rose. It took all of Rose's strength not to jump up and run to him. She was trying to act mature. "You still act like you are eight, Rose." Kiran had commented the other day when Rose had stuck out her tongue in disgust when Kiran had told her of the snog she had shared with Kai. "I bet you can't act like a teenager, even if you wanted to." "But I don't want to," Rose had argued. "Doesn't matter, you still are incapable of it," Kiran remarked. That was it, a dare, and Rose intended to prove Kiran wrong. That is why, as Tom, her Tom, Tom who should be in America, stood at the door Rose merely gave a small smile.

"Hello Tom." She noticed he had a battered suitcase in one hand and a guitar case in the other. Typical Tom, Rose thought.

"Where's the rest of the Casson tribe?" Tom asked as he put down his suitcase and sat down at the kitchen table next to Rose. He gently placed his guitar case next to him, letting the neck rest against the side of the table. Rose admired how gentle Tom was with his guitar. There is something very admirable about treating an instrument with that amount of respect.

"They're out," Rose responded matter-of-factly. "Except Mummy she's-"

"In the shed?" Tom cut her off, grinning. Typical Casson family, he thought.

"Well, where else would she be?"

"And everyone else left you on your own?"

"Oh yes, me and my bloody math homework," Rose huffed. "But now you are here."

"Yes I am," Tom grinned at Rose and she felt her stomach do a summersault.

"Why are you here, Tom?" Rose went back to nonchalantly doodling snowflakes, but she kept one eye on Tom. Half of her was scared that if she looked away, he would disappear. He had a tendency to do that: disappear. One moment he would be in the living room on Christmas break and then the next moment he would be up in the sky on his way back to America. It was like a magic trick, except Rose did not like that type of magic one bit.

Tom looked at Rose while she drew, he noticed the care that she took with each little snowflake. Out of all the "artists" in the Casson household (Bill, Eve, and Rose), Rose was by far the most real artists of the lot. As Rose got older, Tom was disappointed about how she was beginning to look. Although not the golden hair twin of her sisters (well one sister, one cousin), Rose had become shattering-looking. What was once large child eyes became jewels that haunted her face and preyed on the unsuspecting. Her dark brunette hair had grown long and thick with age and seemed to frame her face perfectly. Every time Tom came back to England, came back to the Casson's he noticed something new and shattering about Rose. He simultaneously look forward to seeing her, but also dreaded it.

"Know what the best thing about America is?" Tom leaned back in his chair, still looking thoughtfully at Rose.

"What?" Rose looked up expectantly at Tom.

"Presidents." Tom answered simply.

"Presidents?" Rose raised one eyebrow, a skill Tom had spent a week coaching Rose on before she got it, but once she did there was no going back.

"Oh yeah. In America, schools get an entire week off because of our Presidents. It's called Presidents Week. Brilliant idea on their part."

"So it's Presidents Week then?"

"Not quite yet, I took a day off of school for the flight over, but now I'm here, jet lagged, but other than that perfectly alright."

"I see," Rose went back to her snowflakes, but this time after she finished her last snowflake, Rose began to draw what she thought Tom's Presidents would look like: Old men with big hats, stars on every article of clothing, and long bushy beards. Tom leaned forwards, over Rose to inspect what she was working on.

"It looks like you are working very hard on that assignment. Sure to be a big hit with your teacher." Rose bit her lip. She would not stick her tongue out, she would not, that was not the mature thing to do. Instead she put the pen down and pushed the paper away from her.

"How can you expect me to work on homework when you're distracting me? I'll just do it later , let's say, monday morning." Tom smiled, same old Rose.

"What a relief, I thought I had come all the way from exciting New York, to watch someone do boring school work. Now Rosy Pose-"

"Don't call me that," Rose interrupted. She crinkled her nose. "Everyone still calls me that, I'm not eight anymore." Tom was a bit taken aback, also a bit sad. Rose was right, she wasn't eight anymore, but she also wasn't a kid.

"Fine, sorry," Tom apologized, then went on. "Now Ms. Permanent Rose Casson, how about you show me how much progress you've made on the guitar since our last lesson." Tom had been trying, without much success, to teach Rose the guitar. Rose may be an artist, but she was no musician. It had taken her ages to understand that chords and scales were not the same thing and not to mention Rose's insistence that she could make up her own finger placements. Her G looked more like a deformed E. But it was a new day and Tom hoped that Indigo had gotten around to reinforcing the things Tom had attempted to teach Rose.

"Uhh," Rose avoided Tom's eyes. "Well, umm, you see, Indigo brought his guitar with him tonight so." She triumphantly said.

"Not so fast Ms. Permanent Rose, I have a handy dandy guitar right here," Tom was sure now that Rose had not practiced, but she wasn't off the hook. It was she, after all, who had moaned and groaned last summer about how Tom and Indigo and even David played an instrument and she, Rose, did not. Tom had taken her under his wing, but without knowing it would be easier to have a cat as a pupil than Rose. At least you could train cats.

Rose reluctantly took the guitar out of the case, accidentally banging the side of it against the table. Tom flinched. Serves him right for making me embarrass myself on this thing, Rose thought. Slowly she began to pluck at the strings, grasping in the back of her mind for what to do. Needless to say she completely butchered "Let it Be". Each note was strained and a bit strangled, the waves of sound not quite moving through the air the way they ought to. The longer she went, the more forced Tom's smile became until it was more of a grimace than anything else. When she finished she clumsily handed Tom his guitar back.

"Well," Tom began, looking for some compliment he could give to her attempt. "I could tell you were playing 'Let it Be'." Rose got up and fled to the living room at his comment. She wordlessly sat down on the couch, feeling deflated and stupid. She wanted to be amazing at the guitar, she wanted to prove herself, prove that she was good enough. Most of all she wanted Tom to be proud of her, but she thought back at his face during her performance and then of what he had said. She curled up into a ball, hugging her knees. How was it that with everyone else, she did not care what they thought of her? How come it was only Tom who made her feel like she had to be amazing? Rose didn't understand. She ignored the footsteps that were slowly coming closer to her.

"You know Rose, when I was a kid, I had this friend." He joined her, sitting on the opposite side of the couch. "And he was so good at soccer." Rose lifter her head slightly.

"Soccer?" Her voice was small.

"Sorry, football, it's called soccer in America."

"Oh."

"Well this kid was fantastic, he could play every position and be amazing. I was always stuck being the goalie, you see, because no one else wanted to do it or they were too good to be goalie. Whenever we would start a game I would say 'Is it my turn to be on offensive?' and they would always say 'No Tom, you have to be goalie.' Now, I knew I was terrible and I didn't care that much, but it was when I realized other people thought I was, that was what got to me. So one day, when everyone else went home, I caught up with my friend and I asked him if he would help me improve at my game. He was a good kid so he agreed. We practiced for hours, until it was dark and my father had come looking for me and dragged me home, but I had learned something that day."

"What?"

"I learned that I couldn't stand socc-football. I only wanted to be good for other people. So the next day, instead of going to play football, I stayed home and began fiddling around on my guitar and look at where that's got me." He beamed and then stretched out his legs so that they were 1) sprawled along the length of the couch and 2) ending with his feet pushed against Rose's thigh. "I'm a rock god now."

"So, what you're saying," Rose said slowly, trying (and failing) to wiggle away from Tom's feet. "Is that I am terrible at guitar. Gee thanks." She pushed his feet off of her, but he just immediately resettled them.

"Yes and no. Don't get me wrong, you do suck at playing the guitar." Rose blushed and violently shoved Tom's feet away, but they rebounded back. "But what I mean is that it's alright. You don't have to be good at it, Rosey Pose- Sorry, sorry- I mean Ms. Permanent Rose Casson, because you are an absolutely amazing artist and that is what you are meant to do, not play some silly instrument just because you want to be as good as everyone else." Rose felt her insides balloon with pride at what Tom had said, but she didn't let it on.

"Know what you are, Tom?" Rose asked, eyes flaring mischievously. "You are a git." She kicked her feet around so that the soles of her feet were pushing against the soles of his. "I challenge you to a foot battle. It's sort of like tug of war, first one off the couch loses." She shoved her feet forwards, making Tom's legs bend with the force.

"Hey, no fair Permanent Rose, I didn't know the rules."

"Now you do. Anyways, if I win, you have to keep your smelly feet to yourself."

"And if I win, I get to take up all the space on this couch I want." Tom said, playing along.

"Deal," Rose put more force on her legs, but Tom was slowly stretching out his legs more and more.

"Deal." When they had gotten to a middle ground, both sides equally stretched out, they stayed there for a while. Rose knew Tom was waiting for her to make the first move, but she had a plan. The longer she waited the less force Tom put on her feet. There was silence for a bit, the metallic feel of competition and tension in the air. At least it was in the air for Rose. Still naive Rose, who believed that even though Tom was four years her senior, she could still overpower him only with her strength. The truth was, Tom was letting her win, letting her get the upperhand (or foot in this case) because finally, for the first time that day, he had noticed the Rose he had first met in her. The Rose who took on all the bullies at his and Indigo's old school, despite being four years younger. This was the Rose who he had befriended all that time ago and he had missed her. That is why, when Rose finally gave a huge, quick shove Tom rolled off the couch and landed, with happy defeat, on the floor.

Rose gave an excited whoop, jumping up to her feet, standing victoriously on the couch. She stuck her tongue out at Tom, not caring whether whether or not it was the "mature" thing to do. Kiran would never know anyways, she was not there.

"I am the king of the couch!" Rose yelled, raising her arms in the air. "I am the bloody king and you, Tom Levin, are a peasant. A dirty, smelly peasant.

"We'll see about that," Tom mumbled, a wicked grin on his face. He let Rose have another moment of success before shouting: "ANARCHY!" He reached up suddenly and tickled Roses' waist. She began to laugh, trying to push his arms away.

"Stop" _laugh, gasp _"it!" She repeated over and over again, giggling and gasping for breath. "I" _gasp, laugh, laugh_ "order you!" Rose squirmed trying to avoid Tom and suddenly lost her footing on the couch.

When Rose was younger she had tried to explain to her family about the flying feeling. "People cannot fly," she had told them. "But they can get the flying feeling." Only Indigo understood what she meant, the rest of them did not know what on earth Rose was talking about, although all of them during one time or another had felt it. Falling is not the same thing as flying, falling is scary and unpleasant and embarrassing. Falling is the opposite of flying. So when Rose fell off the couch, she did not feel the flying feeling. She felt the rush of terror and energy and shame, however those feelings did not last. And unlike almost every other time Rose had fallen, this one was followed immediately by the flying feeling.

It was Tom's arms that caught her, not the unforgiving floor. There was a second, brief, but also infinitely long, where Rose felt the flying feeling. She felt as though the world as she had known it disappeared and the only thing left was Tom, his arms and the look of shock and concern on his face. Time froze then as it does sometimes when you feel every possible emotion at once. Rose realized how glad she was that Tom was there, not just in their house, but in her life.

When time decided that it could move forward once more, Tom went along with it. He gently let go of Rose, making sure she was steady on the floor.

"Careful Rosey Pose." Tom finally managed to say. "You scared me to death." Rose nodded, she had been scared too.

Thoughtfully, Rose said, "That was the second time."

"Second time what?"

"You caught me." Both Tom and Rose remembered the first time then. It had been their first encounter when Rose, quite literally, fell into Tom's life.

"I'm sure it won't be the last, if you keep up your streak." Tom smirked and Rose did her signatures scrunched up face and sticking out of her tongue.

"This time was your fault! You were tickling me." Rose sat down defiantly on the couch.

"So it was Rosy Pose," Tom sighed. "So it was."

"I've changed my mind," Rose said, looking out the small window across the room.

"About?"

"You can call me Rosy Pose if you like," Rose said. They stayed where they were for a while, each deep in thought. Rose was thinking about the flying feeling and how absurd being "mature" was. Tom was thinking about the fear he had felt when Rose fell. It was an unmistakable feeling of imminent loss. He resigned himself then to always, no matter what, be there to catch Rose if she fell. Or at the very least get Indy to do it for him.

The silence was interrupted by a yawn. The yawn belonged to Rose, although she was not it's master. It did what it liked and as much as Rose did not want it to come, it did.

"Been a long day?" Tom asked. "Or have I just worn you out?"

"Don't flatter yourself," Rose smiled, although it had been his sudden appearance that had worn her out more than most that day. "Tom?"

"Yeah?"

"Will you do me a favour and promise promise not to tell Indigo or Saffy or Sarah or Kiran if I ever introduce the two of you?" Tom curiously looked at Rose.

"Probably, what is it?"

"Will you read to me?" Rose's face looked so young at that moment, so lonely, that Tom knew that he would read to her, hell he would have probably done anything for her.

"Like a bed time story?' He asked.

"Like a bedtime story." Rose nodded and then bashfully added: "I know I'm fourteen and way too old to ask for such childish things, but I don't want to be a grown up yet and it has been ages and ages since anyone has read to me." Tom understood what she meant. I don't want her to be a grown up yet either, he thought to himself sadly.

"Yeah, sure, why not?" Tom said and Rose broke out into a real smile, not just a smirk or mischievous grin, but a full on smile.

"I'll be right back," she announced getting up and running out of the room. Tom stayed put, leaning back into the couch. Rose was not long, in less than a minute she arrived with a very old, very thick book. Tom didn't need to look at the cover to know what book it was.

"_Le Morte De' Arthur_? Really Rose?" Tom mocked a groan.

"Oh yes and you will read me the bits about Lancelot, they are my favorites."

"Alrighty then, Permanent Rose. Whatever you say, only I won't read the rude parts," Tom winked. "That's where I draw the line." Rose nodded immediately, feeling her cheeks blush.

She yawned once more, sitting down on the couch right next to Tom and tucked her feet underneath her. Tom reached out for the book and opening it up to a part he knew Rose enjoyed. As he began to read, for the second time that evening the world began to disappear. Suddenly Rose was not in the banana house and Tom was no longer Tom. In Rose's mind he turned into Lancelot recalling his own adventures. Rose's eyes grew heavy as Lancelot regaled his battles and tricks and adventures. Rose nuzzled into Lancelot's side, feeling the warmth of his body. It was so comforting and lovely. Slowly Rose drifted away into a dream where Tom/Lancelot and she went on adventures. Battling all sorts and having their own adventures. Indigo was there, along with the rest of Rose's friends and family, but they drifted in and out of her story. Only she and her Tom/Lancelot were always there, always together.

Tom did not realize that Rose had fallen asleep, he also did not realize how tired he was. He continued to read, but soon the words became fuzzy and his voice slower. In the last moments before he, himself, drifted off to sleep, he mumbled: "Goodnight Permanent Rose." With that his head fell gently on top of Rose's and together they slept.

…

It was Indigo who saw them first. He had just gotten home quite late (and mildly drunk) from a rather lame party at a peer's house. All the way home (he walked), Indigo had hoped that Rose would be asleep. Indigo felt slightly guilty for leaving her on her own for so long. He knew that Saffy and Sarah had decided to spend the weekend at University rather than schlep back home and that meant it was Rose and Eve (who never left her shed). Indigo did not, however, remember the email that Tom had sent him the day prior. In the email Tom had announced that he would be paying the Casson's a visit the next day.

As indigo clumsily opened the door of the banana house, he immediately saw the two and quite suddenly remembered the email. Good ol' Tom, was Indigo's first thought. His second was along the lines of "Should I be concerned that he seems to be asleep and sort of cuddling with my sister?" Indigo decided that he should be, but wasn't at the moment. Instead he hobbled to the shed to consult his mother on the matter.

"Darling Tom," Eve smiled softly at the scene, then turned to Indigo. "Do you think if I take a picture they will wake up? I would so like to make a photo album for their wedding." Indigo was taken aback.

"What do you mean wedding?" He hissed, mind still foggy.

"Well we all knew it was coming. Know what, I won't, just in case it wakes them up." Indigo felt uncomfortable with this conversation although he knew perfectly well what Eve meant. Tom and Rose, he had known it from the first note Rose had sent Tom via Indigo, were together. They always would be. Indigo resigned himself to this, gave his mother a kiss on the head, said goodnight and went up to bed.

Everyone slept well that night. Neither Tom nor Rose woke up in the middle of the night and when morning arrived, it was Tom who opened his eyes first and it was Tom who carefully got up from the couch, stretched, and kissed the top of Rose's head affectionately and said (quietly as to not wake her up): "Good morning Permanent Rose."


End file.
